US diesel sales increase in 2018

22 January 2019

In 2018, even as overall automobile sales in the United States were up by only 0.5%, 50,000 more diesel vehicles were sold, led largely by pickup and SUV sales. From information provided by Baum & Assoc. for 2018 US automotive sales:

Light duty vehicles (Class 1-3 ) sales of diesel vehicles reached their highest annual level, coming in at more than 500,000 units, or just over 3% of total vehicle sales in the US. This share exceeded that of hybrid vehicles, which came in at almost 2% of total sales, as well as the sales of plug-in electric vehicles (plug-in hybrids and full-battery-electric vehicles combined), which came in at around 2% of total sales.

Class 2 and 3 pickups have and continue to be the largest users of these engines, with an overall growth rate of 12.5 percent over 2017. Over a three-year period (not annualized), this category has seen a very strong growth rate of 35 percent, with the strongest growth in 2017 and 2018. The Ford Super-Duty, FCA Ram pick-up, Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra represent the bulk of the diesel sales in this category with a combined 385,790 diesel units sold.

Diesel sales in smaller vehicles showed modest growth in 2018, after a drop in both 2016 and 2017. Sales from these vehicles in 2018 increased by 9% as compared to 2017. The three top diesel sellers in this category were the Ford Transit, Mercedes Sprinter and Ford F-150 with a combined 89,387 diesel units sold.